Resistance: Desperation
by dozy-joe-2000
Summary: My first Resistance fic. Follow Private Hollis as he negotiates his way through Chimera-filled York as part of the Royal Cheshire Regiment, or what's left of it. Please read and review.


**Resistance: Fall of Man**

_Chapter One_

Squad One was on point, ten men materialising from the thin fog that blanketed the outskirts of York, a remnant of the heavy shelling that the Chimera loved to subject the beleaguered British troops to so much. Their Mk.6 Carbines up and traversing, they emerged from rubble-strewn alleyways and through blast holes in skeletal, bombed-out buildings, their wire supports like broken ribs protruding from the scorched concrete. The street was pockmarked with shell holes and strewn with burnt-out cars and old, decomposing corpses. Ash from long-silenced fires hung in the cold February air like suspended-animation snowflakes. Their grey-green uniforms overlaid with their brown winter-jackets did a moderate job of keeping out the biting cold, though there was a cross-wind screaming through the blast-holes and along the street that dug at them like cold knives, gouging the exposed skin of their necks and faces. They wore thin gloves, fingerless, so the trigger finger would not slip. The heavy rubber souls of their combat boots crunched on the scattered brick and concrete gravel beneath their feet.

"Bigger spread, remember, they can see better than we can. Get across the street and into the ruins, and find a cover position. Then we'll wait for Squad Two." Sergeant Black was the one who spoke, his Glasgow accent clear as a bell, though his tones were soft. Private Stuart Hollis found himself at the far right of the line of soldiers. He felt very small in the ruined cityscape. He looked over at his Sergeant for some measure of comfort, and in his haggard face he found none. The older man had a long, white scar on his cheek, a weather-worn and care-lined face, and a temperament that may have been joyful once, but which had been hardened by years of fighting a losing battle against the never-ending armies of the Chimera. As he watched, the Sergeant adjusted the strap of his unmarked helmet, dented and pitted by shrapnel marks and glancing bullets he was extremely lucky hadn't hit him head-on. He held his carbine with practised ease. It almost absent-mindedly checked empty partly-intact windows and blast-holes and half blocked street and alley-mouths across the road before them, operating on a veteran's autopilot.

It took focus for a total rookie like Hollis to do the same. This was his very first time out. He had completed basic a week ago, and since his assignment to his platoon, the third platoon of the fourth company of what had been the Cheshires, this was the first time they had been issued combat orders. He had been assigned to First Squad after the death of a lance-corporal by the name of Jones who the unit seemed to miss. A first-timer in a squad of veterans. He shuddered. He hadn't had a conversation in seven days, despite his ordinarily outgoing nature. He hadn't even received a nod, a grunt, a passing glance. Now, however, they glanced at him, but there was nothing welcoming in their gaze. He recognised it. It was a look of concern, but not for his safety – for theirs. It was a look of suspicion. Would the new bloke cock it up? Would he shit himself in the face of the enemy, scream and bolt, or worse, freeze and not call out a contact? Would he get himself killed, and possibly them with him through his incompetence?

He promised himself he would not, but as he shivered, he knew it wasn't just from the cold. He wished he could believe his own assurances, but what the fuck did he know until the Chimera actually appeared. He tightened his grip to white-knuckle on the rifle in his hands, almost like he was upping his own alert status – brown alert, right on the verge of crapping himself in terror. He almost chuckled at the immature mental joke, but stifled it. It wouldn't reassure his reluctant squad mates. He saw them laugh and joke with each other. He vowed that too – one day he would be in the circle of trust. That in itself made him feel better than promising himself he wouldn't screw the pooch. It was somehow more...optimistic.

The men fanned out further, extending their spread from a metre or so to five metres. The silence was total, but for the shrieking wind. It was completely unexpected when there was a sudden ripple of sound in the extreme distance, popping sounds that echoed around the broken city streets. There was a dreadfully pregnant pause, and Hollis felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew what the sound was even before it turned into a howl at a higher-pitch than the wind, even before the Sergeant called it.

"Incoming! They must have the area zeroed, get into cover, get into cover!"

Across the street from them, in the shattered structures, waited relative safety. They were the remains of residential buildings, and dead ahead from Hollis was a red-brick structure that was virtually unrecognisable. The cellar was open to the air, the ground floor having collapsed. Due to the slope, the side of the cellar wasn't underground on the opposite side, and blast-holes would make good firing positions. The ground floor was a hole over the cellar, but for on the right, where the walls were the most intact, and the kitchen was eerily untouched, skeletal forms sat on the scuffed chairs, the leering skulls face-down on the table. Two were adults. He didn't want to look at the other two, smaller skeletons. Their plates were still in front of them, the decaying remains of a meal a disgusting mess. The first floor, the top of the house, the roof had collapsed, as had the floor below, and now was a slope of red-brick and slate that ended in the basement.

Good enough. He rushed forward, when suddenly he was thrown into the air as something smashed into the ground behind him, a plume of dust and smoke kicked up, a flat clap of thunder its herald. He hit the floor hard, his ears ringing, his head cloudy. There were more impacts, more thunder, bright flashes of yellow-white light that threw everything into stark shadow, and played eerily in the fog of war and smoke. He lay there for what seemed like forever, tasting dirt, his blurred vision facing down the street in the opposite direction to the rest of the squad. He wondered vaguely what was happening to them. He heard a scream of agony and rage, close but somehow distant. He tried to think who had been next to him, but then he blacked out. It was only momentary, but he lost his train of thought. The bombardment continued. He felt something grasp the back of his winter jacket, thought that it was probably one of his squad mates, because even the Chimera weren't bloodthirsty enough to advance into their own shell-storm.

He hoped it was one of his squad mates.

He felt himself being hauled upright, a second hand on his collar. He felt his head clearing, the ringing in his ears fading, the confusion passing. He gained his feet, was able to assist his rescuer. The house he had been looking for cover rushed to meet him, and soon he dropped four feet to his hands and knees in the basement, the fragmented glass and masonry sending pain shooting through him.

"Heads up!" called a Scouse voice from somewhere overhead. Hollis looked up to see Corporal Taylor above him, a swarthy man, his broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms belying the high pitch of his voice. He dropped Hollis's carbine to him, and Hollis, to his surprise, was alert enough to catch it. Then Taylor followed.

"Did you see Harris get hit? A piece of shrapnel as long as your forearm right through the meat of his thigh. He just got fucking angry and started cursing and limping to cover. One scary bastard." the man said as he got close to the wall with Hollis so the shrapnel had no chance of getting them. Hollis almost smiled. He agreed with the man heartily – Harris was six foot eight and built like a brick shithouse, and he had a jaw you could cut steel with. He had small eyes and an overhanging brow that made him look like a caveman, but he was really as bright as any of the rest of them, and had a barbed, clever wit. Hollis had never seen him angry, and decided then and there that he didn't want to.

More shells fell, and Taylor's next words were lost to the barrage, but Hollis nodded along. It amazed him how the man could be so cool when Hollis thought the reverberations would shake him apart if the shells didn't blow him apart. He fought the urge to cover his head with his hands.

"It's okay mate," he heard Taylor say between shell hits, "The urge to cower will be shelled out of you eventually and you'll remember the physics of shells and shrapnel and once you're in cover you'll feel okay. There'll be times when the shelling gets ridiculous and it'll come back in force, but then its understandable."

It was at that point they both realised he had managed to finish a sentence, and at the same moment they realised the shelling had ceased. An eerie silence descended, the wind the only noise once again, only now it moaned as though wounded. The smoke began to rise upwards, and visibility became a little better.

"We'd better get to a firing position mate. They'll come up the slope next, that's the direction their positions are in from here." Taylor finished.

Hollis intended to stammer out a 'yes sir' but he couldn't form words. Now the threat of the Chimera seemed moments away he felt the old fear resurge, but he did as he was told. The two men moved to a couple of blast-holes in the basement wall, rested their rifles on the rough bottom edges. They were just high enough off the ground for them to crouch and fire.

"Get ready. A few seconds now."

From where he now crouched, peering down the iron sights of the Mk.6, he could see buildings reduced to the foundations and little else, giving the Chimera plenty of cover. He could see, due to the low profile of the battered buildings, the spaces that were streets networked over the squares of houses. He realised he was holding his breath, but could not summon the will to release it.

"Steady lad. There!"

Hollis looked at Taylor, who was pointing to the right. His first contacts were emerging, moving up the line of the slope, the tops of their heads, and then their leathery skin, their six glowing eyes, emerging from over the jagged bricks, one after another, more of them emerging as they continued, one by one, the slope gradually feeding them into view. Hybrids, the infantry regulars of the Chimera forces, their bulky 'Bullseye' rifles, gunmetal grey like their armoured legs. Their bare torsos and heads were greyish yellow and were lithe and powerful.

They spotted him. The lead soldier was bigger than the others, wore thick metallic armour, and was clothed in a tight suit, matt-black, that clung to the shoulders. A metal helmet sat on his head, his eyes glowing through its eyeholes. The same apparatus that hung on the backs of the hybrids with their glowing yellow rods, hung on the back of the bigger variant, only his was bigger, more complicated-looking. Taylor noticed where he was looking.

"Steelhead. He's the squad leader. And yes, he is looking right at us. So now...we shoot."

With that, he ripped off a burst that tore the head and shoulders of the Hybrid behind the Steelhead.

"Yes, take that you little fucker!"

The Chimera unit began to filter into the buildings in that direction, looking for cover, and firing their weapons, streams of glowing shots slamming into the scenery around him.

To Hollis's surprise and elation, he didn't freeze up. He opened fire, squeezing off a sustained burst, his .303 rounds rattling over the buildings and tearing out the belly of a running Chimera. It screamed and inhuman scream and tumbled out of sight into the cellar of a house.

"Good shooting, Hollis!" called Taylor.

"Good shooting yourself, that other one's going to wake up with one hell of a hangover!" called back Hollis to his own surprise, and Taylor whooped with laughter as he fired again, the muzzle flare shining in his eyes, making him look crazed and manic. Hollis drew a bead on another Chimera, but he disappeared out of sight behind a brick wall, crouching for cover.

Cursing, Hollis retasked, spotted another, dead ahead. More were behind it. He caught flashes of them passing through the ruins of the houses, a lot of them. More units of Chimera, closing from the front and the left. Rifle fire had erupted from the houses to their left, telling Hollis that all along the hillside it was the same. He heard Sergeant Black calling out orders over the exchange, but he couldn't make out what they were.

A Chimera reared up and over-armed a grey sphere with many conical points in their direction. He was straight ahead, and with the state of the house he couldn't fail to get it inside. As the device left his skeletal hand, Hollis shot him through one of his evil, yellow eyes and he fell back out of sight into the debris. The grenade – he recognised it now as a 'Hedgehog' grenade – flew overhead and in through the damaged front wall. It landed two metres behind him, clattering into the rubble before, suddenly, it leapt five feet into the air to it's 'kill-height'.

Time stood still.

"Taylor, get down!" he called out, throwing himself face first to the ground and covering his helmeted head. Taylor looked around as the grenade went off. Dozens of razor-sharp metal spines exploded outwards in all directions. Then, the device detonated in a flash of light, fire, and smoke.

Hollis got to his knees, pushed his rifle back through the blast-hole and hosed the forward ruins to keep the Chimera back, dropped his empty magazine, slammed home another, and then looked over to see Taylor, certain the man was dead. Instead, he let out a small gasp.

Taylor was nailed to the wall, but he was miraculously breathing. One spine had pinned his shoulder to the wall, and blood soaked the top of his sleeve, another had pinned his hand straight through the centre, up next to his head. Another bolt was in his calf, and another at his right side which had scraped his ribs, drawing blood there too, soaking the brown jacket black.

The most unbelievable spine had pinned his collar to the wall. He gulped as Hollis watched. His eyes stared straight ahead, and he was plainly shocked but alive. He then dropped his rifle, which he still held one handed, and pulled the one at his collar out, and then reached for the one in his hand second. He roared as he pulled it clear, and then pitched forward, rolling on the ground, his clothes tearing as well as the flesh of his calf as he fell away from the wall. He screamed in agony.

"F-fu-fuck!" he stammered through the pain.

There was an inhuman screech outside, that drew Hollis's attention. As he looked through the hole in the brick he saw another Hybrid rearing back to throw a grenade, and shot him twice through the pale torso. It convulsed and fell back, and the grenade rolled back into the shattered foundations of the house in which it stood. Moments later it went off, and there were more screams to accompany Taylor's groans.

"Hold on Taylor, hold on!" he yelled over his own fire as he shot at more hunched, animalistic shapes as they flitted through the ruins, closing. It began to occur to him that he was dead meat. He couldn't hold the house alone, hell, even if Taylor was still fighting, they couldn't. There were dozens of Chimera here alone, let alone fighting the rest of the squad. They would be overrun. Strangely, he felt no fear. This, he decided, must be the combat calm the instructors had spoke of, Instructor 'Shakes' Shakely particularly. He had lost an arm and an eye to one of the Hedgehog grenades, and he often said that while he lay there, bleeding, his arm mangled and riddled with spines, and his eye ripped out by a glancing blow, the combat calm even kept him from bleeding out – he had forced himself to maintain it, to regulate his pulse and therefore the flow of his blood.

Hollis was glad Shakes had been right.

"Come on you bastards! Come on!" he yelled, and, resolved, began to prove the trait for marksmanship he had showed in basic. A darting shape, loping across the street to the left to attack the next house, he ignore – his gait would have made the shot awkward. He picked out a target to the right, trying to get up the street and around their flank, three others close behind it. He fired three times, fatally striking the lead Hybrid in the face, neck and chest, dropping it to the blasted tar of the road surface. The others paused, two shouldering their weapons to fire at him. He cut one down, but the other hosed his position and he ducked back, brick dust and plaster chips from the wall behind him showering down, obscuring his vision. Suddenly, the fusillade was cut short, and the dust cleared. Soldiers, British soldiers, from the second squad, were moving into the street, taking up positions in the debris.

Hollis heard a scuffling fall behind him and saw a soldier he didn't recognise, bearing a Private's single-chevron insignia like Hollis's own. He nodded to Hollis and then called to someone outside the cellar, back on the street, out of Hollis's sight.

"Medic in here! Get a shift on, Baxter, we've got a man down in here!" his admonishment called, the round-faced, boyish individual dashed over to take up Taylor's position, stopping to pat him on his uninjured shoulder. "You'll be alright, mate, Baxter isn't as drunk as usual."

"Comforting." muttered Taylor, cracking a smile, having regained much of his composure. Hollis reflected he was probably in shock, somehow draining the levity from the scene. The newcomer began to crack shots off down the slope, and Hollis joined him, firing at snarling, fanged faces and gnarled, pallid torsos.

Another man entered the cellar, wearing a Medic's patch under his chevron, the acclaimed Baxter. He dashed over to Taylor and cracked open the plastic protective case of his medic kit, looked up to see what his squad mate was doing.

"Hey, Eddie, when I shoot, I try to hit things. Did they teach you to use that rifle in basic or tickle the Chimera with it?" he had the brash good-natured manner of the cockney, and he seemed to know his fellow soldier well. 'Eddie' spared him an amused glance.

"Now, it wouldn't do you much good tickling them, would it? They aren't big laughers, the Chimera."

Hollis listened to the exchange with interest. He just didn't understand joking in a fire fight. He supposed he would get it later.

"Shit, they're getting close!" called Eddie suddenly, his voice startlingly serious.

He was right, the Chimera were in the very next building, which was literally a broken set of foundations encircled by the remains of the supporting walls, no more than four feet of them at the tallest point, but the cellar at the far side of the residence was intact and made a good massing point for a charge. As Hollis watched, the staircase that they could just see the top of, became occupied, one of the 'Steelheads' his helmet gleaming, his broad, blunt head leering evilly, his maw opening in a snarl, revealing two rows of sharp, serrated fangs. He and Eddie shot it at the same time, straight through the open mouth, blasting its head apart. As it fell back, dead and partially headless, lean Chimera forms began to swell up from beneath him, several taking position high up on the stairs enough that they could hose the human position. The men on the right were locked in a close fire fight with the Chimera squads pushing up along the street, and so couldn't help them.

Eddie took a grenade from the webbing under his jacket, primed it and tossed the smoking device through the gap. It clattered into the next house and rolled along the sagging floor to the staircase. The Chimera ceased returning fire and ducked back as the device paused agonisingly, and then dropped out of sight.

There was a split second of nothing, and then a loud detonation. Gore splashed the back wall of the staircase, and flew up and spattered down from the opening. Eddie whooped. A Hybrid stumbled into the open, half-dragging itself from the staircase, disoriented and injured and confused. Two of its eyes had been popped by microshrapnel, and the others seemed dimmer for it. He shot it, brutally executing the injured beast, and Hollis felt dark pleasure as he watched it die. More fire, from across the street, and to the left, near where Chimera troops were attacking the house to their left, Chimera forces attempting to set up crossfires on the battered façade of the structure.

The fire was heavy enough to cause Hollis and Eddie to recoil, and the Chimera squads ahead used the moment to boil up towards them from the forward angle.

"Jesus!" Hollis bellowed, as he saw through the haze of brick dust, dark hunched forms less than ten feet away.

"He can't help you now, you soft bastard, so you'd better hope we kill them all!" it was Taylor who spoke. He had been well bandaged, and now sat behind them with his rifle, ready to help repulse them from the wall.

Hollis got half to his feet, firing from the hip into the blast-hole. He heard shrieks of rage and pain as his bullets found marks.

The dark shapes seemed to be heading for a spot between the two humans' positions, and it took Hollis until Taylor called out to figure out why.

He turned to see Taylor firing at a point above their position in the cellar, through the gaping hole of the above floor. As he fired his Mk.6 a Hybrid, dead and shot up, its blood leaking into the debris, tumbled down from above, and he realised they were going over.

"Back! Back guys!" called Taylor. Baxter had unslung his own weapon, a Rossmore. He fired, the weapon booming in the enclosed space.

Eddie was still firing from the hip into the blast-hole, but he fell back with Hollis, one step at a time. As he got back into the wan light of the sun, Hollis looked up and saw that the Hybrids were trying to clamber through the windows that would have been living room windows once upon a time. He shot one that was half-through and aiming its rifle while another clambered past him.

Sheet-fire erupted behind them, and another cursory glance told him more backup had arrived, though Hollis doubted it mattered now. His weapon clicked empty, and at that moment something blasted through the cellar wall in front of them, connecting the two blast holes.

Eddie was knocked to the floor, and wasn't moving. For a moment there was a thick haze of smoke and dust, and then Bullseye fire whipped through the opening, making the smoke eddy and swirl in the freezing air. Baxter's chest was tore open by a trio of rounds, blood gouting down over Taylor's sitting form, drenching him. He shuddered and spasmed and fell back, dead.

"We're fucking leaving!" Hollis was surprised when the words came out of his own mouth. Eddie was stirring, and they officially had been pushed back from their defensive positions. Enough was enough.

"What?" bellowed Taylor, indignant that he had been overridden, though he plainly agreed. Hollis, rounds whipping past, grabbed his collar and began to drag him to the other side of the big cellar where they had sheltered from the Chimeran shells. It was hard going through the rubble. He could hear voices encouraging him from above, virtually drowned out by the rifle fire. A Hybrid emerged through the smoke, his rifle blurting, held at hip-level. He was cut down by at least three assault rifles.

Two ceased as he reached the wall, and looking up, he saw that the hands of two dirty-faced soldiers reached down to grab the wounded Corporal and pull him out. "Behind you!" one pointed at the far wall and Hollis spun back around. Eddie was scrambling to join them, and more Chimera were emerging. A Steelhead lunged through the smoke, all chrome armour plating and teeth. Hollis took a knee and squeezed the trigger. There was a dry, dead click that made his heart slump. Rounds sparked from the armour plating of the eight-foot beast. It held its Augur rifle one-handed, and before it could raise it to fire, Hollis's eyes fell on Baxter's shotgun.

He dove for it, unthinking, discarding the rifle. He slid next to the dead man, his eyes wide and staring at Hollis, as incredulous as he would have seen the rescued Taylor looking, had he turned around. He grasped the shotgun by the trigger guard, tugged it into his grasp, and pumped the slide.

The weapon boomed, and the Steelhead lurched back, half the buckshot wasted on his armour or lodged in his undersuit. He pumped the weapon and fired a second time, this time doing much more damage, taking out its shoulder and upper arm. It stepped back, screamed, raised the Augur rifle in its other hand. He pumped the weapon again, and hoped he had a third shot. He aimed for its face and exposed lower jaw.

He squeezed the trigger, and its head disappeared in a cloud of fine gore, its jaw blasted to tatters, its shrieks silenced as its throat and brain were minced by the outlying grains of buckshot in the broad pattern in which the shotgun fired. It pitched backwards, dead as it gets, and Hollis moved on autopilot, released the gun, turned, fire from the back wall intensifying. He leaped and grabbed the proffered hand of one of their rescuers, Taylor grasping his jacket and helping to pull him up while Eddie and a couple of other troopers covered them.

Hollis looked along the street and saw third squad were indeed their rescuers as he had suspected. He saw his own squad pulling back out of the ruins too. He could see Sergeant Black, and the bulky figure of Harris in the distance, the shrapnel in his leg gone, the wound bandaged. He still limped a little. He was firing into the building from which he had emerged, at the far end of the street. There were nowhere near thirty figures in the street, and he was reminded of Baxter's death. Others would surely have died. The thought of that, even though he barely knew these men, some may have perished, stung.

"We're to get out. The mission is scrubbed, the Chimera knew we were coming." called down one of the men of third between bursts of fire.

Hollis was glad. So glad.

"Here, Hollis, take my rifle, you'll do better than me with me like this." said Taylor, forcing the weapon into Hollis's arms. Hollis rolled over, and the next few moments were lost to firing and retreating, firing and retreating, back the way they had come. They made it across the street quickly, and tried to disappear back the way they had come, but the leading edge of the Chimera forces were too close, making evasion near impossible.

Hollis realised they could look forward to a brutal street fight against the incalculably numerous enemy forces.


End file.
